The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700

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The Library at Naworth

Secondary Title (i.e. Proceedings Title):For Hilaire Belloc: Essays in Honor of his 71st Birthday Periodical Title: Publication Type:book Authors:Matthew, D. Editors:D. Woodruff Publisher:Sheed & Ward Place of Publication:London Publication Date:1942 Alternate Date (i.e. Conference Date): Volume: Issue: Start Page:117 End Page:130 Abstract: Descriptors/Keywords: ISBN: URL:
Documents in Print Item: No Documents Listed in Print Item Attached People: Collector (major) - Howard, William (19 Dec 1563-Oct 1640)
 Location(s): Housed collection or remnant at - Naworth Castle (Museum and/or Archive) -> Cumbria (Region)
 Bibliographic Source(s): William Camden and Early Collections of ..., page: , notes:
Items Which List This As A Bibliographic Source: None Images Contained: No Images Attached To This Item
 Objects Contained: No Objects Attached To This Item
 Annotation:Matthew writes, "A study of the Household Books [of William Howard] gives some impression of the life led at Naworth Castle on the Scottish Border in the stronghold of the Dacres which looked across the Irthing to the Waste of Bewcastle. It was an isolated way of living with a rather primitive and cumbered dignity, and it is always surprising that such a library, the fruit of twenty years of antiquarian and religious reading, should have been brought up in the carts which carried the pictures and the household stuffs from Newburn to Naworth across the fells. In return for further books, which were sent from London, Lord William would send to the antiquaries in the South such stones with Roman inscriptions as he could find. 'Till haie tyme was past," he wrote on one occasion in this connection to Sir Robert Cotton, "I could get no draughts to undertake to carrie them'" (118). Howard expressed "those antiquarian interests in Roman inscriptions ... which were to characterise the Stuart century. Thus the Cronish diamonds which Thomas Roscarrock, Lord William's old friend and quasi-pensioner, had brought to Naworth were the quiet precursors of those curious objects of nature which the Restoration wold and the eighteenth century would soon collect" (128).